


A tale of Christmas Hats

by FlounderTech



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Gen, Hats, Us - Freeform, not les amis but les amis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlounderTech/pseuds/FlounderTech
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"C" (Modern incarnation of Courf) starts to look for her friends presents. Hats are a thing here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A tale of Christmas Hats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shelny18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shelny18/gifts).



> I point out now, the characters are very much based on my flatmates and I, and kind of around the Les Amis.   
> Its also my first fic in said fandom - so you know. Hopefully y'all enjoy it.

Christmas was coming and C was having a hell of a time trying to locate presents for her flatmates and friends. There was a general joke that had been discovered after the first fortnight that the group of friends were effectively old students from a book, and later musical, that they had all fallen in love with. It generally went along the lines of them being the female, British version of them without the revolution, or the full revolution at least.   
C was told that she was very much the epitome of Courfeyrac – and as she grew to know the story and the characters, she could see why. From the beginning, though the youngest of the group, the young woman had effectively taken the role of the mother bird, taking care of the flat and the lass that lived off in one of the other buildings on the university campus. And then there were her hats. Many, many times, C had dressed up as the mad hatter many, many times (enough to earn her the nickname of “Hatter”), and she had grown a dependency on them. In the winter months it was rare that she was seen without a hat, and with every formal occasion, if she was to wear her suit, she would demand that she were to be able to wear her top hat that was ever so slightly too small for her head. She loved her hats, and she was oh so protective of the head wear. And in that, she had her idea for the presents that she would get for the other students in her group.   
It was a trip home, you see, and she knew that the charity shops that lined the high street had the most magnificent array of hats that she had seen – especially once her brother had informed her of the fact that the collection had grown through the multitude of the shops.   
For Jen, their Enjolras, she had located a red and black deerstalker, after her own of varying colours had been taken many times as a joke, as well as to annoy her. It was surprisingly cheap considering the fact that it was a really rather well kept, clean hat. Barely worn, she would have said. C had decided that if she could, she would locate a hat just like it for the girl down the end of the corridor, even joked about it with Jen herself after her hat had taken residence in her room for a long while. And so it was placed behind the til for her as she carried on browsing.   
Beck, well. Beck had a battered old thing that was quite clearly well loved at one point, faded into duller colours. It screamed at her that it was the hated version of her cynical friend. It had a few holes in, but they would be easily patched up. Effectively, her plans for that particular hat was exactly how she had taken the girl under her wing to look after and take care of. She was her assistant chef and the floors baker and they all loved the woman to pieces. But she had her days where they worried about her, and C was known to go and sit in her room with her arm around her, leaning on her shoulder in silence, or with whatever the woman was listening to at the time. It was a way for her to look after Beck, and she would keep that up even after they finished their courses.   
The last hat that C had spotted in that particular was a hat that made her chuckle. It was for a friend back home that she had known effectively all of the teens life. The group, once they had been introduced to Griff, had taken to reffering to him as the pup. He was a good few years younger than C herself, but they had been relatively close to her throughout the Baccalaureate years. Griff had put her up when she needed a place to stay and it was Griff who ended up dragging her to the head of year to explain everything that had been going on at home, and therefore why she was struggling to meet normal deadlines but not that of coursework. He wasn’t one she could forget. The hat that had caught her eye for her dear friend back home was that which was almost based style wise on a beanie, just obscenely fluffy with a pair of floppy ears on the top and a tail down the back that would rest just at the base of his neck. The hat was that of a puppy. A Husky pup – of which she had called him since they had met. There was very little need for a decision in that sense – she knew almost immediately that it was the hat for the boy.   
That particular shop barely scraped ten pounds, the deerstalker and a small piece of fabric that matched the shade of green that the hat she needed to patch up for Beck was what pushed it up that far. It hadn’t taken her all too long before she located the next shop that had an ongoing sale on various hats that would catch anyone’s eye. Especially hers.  
There was a Creative writing student on her floor that she had grown to know rather well, maybe even briefly fallen a little for – at least until she realised that the poet... well, in truth, writer, was most certainly not one that she could see herself being with by the end of the brief puppy crush she had. It simply would not have worked out well for the flat – drama in the first year was something C wished to avoid. And yet there, right in front of her was a slightly faded, well loved rainbow hat. She had to jump to get it off the mannequins head, almost taking the entire shelf with it.  
The only way that C could understand the fact that the hat was perfect for Eva was to try it on herself. The hat had little flaps that covered her ears and extended up and down behind her back, mimicking long hair in a ponytail – just in a slightly faded rainbow. She could see it now, just being used as a lead to keep her in check.  
“Oi, Eva.” The girl didn’t pay attention, starting to skip ahead humming a stupid tune off the top of her head. Beck simply let a groan and extended her hand out to catch the end of the hat, pulling the writer back to her side. “Stop runnin’off. T’aint doing any’o’us the world of good.”   
It was with that image in mind that she knew. She had the perfect hat for their dear friend.  
The local med student that had decided that she would change course by the end of the year was the next hat for her to locate. Alison was so easy to place within the students for more reasons than just the basic fact that she was the med student of the friendship group. C had always seen her panicking about something or other to do with her own health.   
“Do I seem pale to you? How hot am I?   
What did you feed me? Are you sure that you cooked it right? I think I’ve food poisoning.   
I’m pretty sure I’m dying... C, help. Phone the doctors, will you?”   
All of this had lead to the thought that if the girl ever truly got ill, the rest of the group wouldn’t call for help – simply claim the whole boy who cried wolf issue. C had spotted a fluffy scarf which she soon worked out was in fact a hooded thing, a wolf head on top was complete with long strings with paws on the base of it, warm and the kind that could be used while walking from lecture to lecture. It looked like the warmest thing that she could find – and she was pretty damned sure that Ali wasn’t allergic to the fibres in it. And so, much like the hat before that, it went behind the counter for her to pick up a little later.   
Carrie was next on her list, and as soon as she spotted the black bowler hat up in the corner, C knew that was the one almost immediately. Carrie was the sensible one of the large group. In fact, she was the common sense of the lot. She leant up and picked it off the shelf, taking a good look at it with a soft grin on her lips. If it was three sizes to small for her head, it would be perfect for the girl who ended up mothering everyone and all, looking after C herself – after all, it was most certainly needed. C had the worst habit. No matter who it was, or what was happening in her own life, she would put everyone else’s happiness, safety and sanity in front of her own until it was too late. Which tended to be when Carrie stepped in and forced her to go curl up in bed and watch a silly movie or something of the sorts, simply to get her out of the situation that she had gotten herself into. Yes. This was the hat for her.   
C was half tempted to get a silly one – appeal to the other side of her, the side that she knew that Carrie had and was rather keen to see a lot more. It was oh so tempting... No, she would be well behaved. She wouldn’t get the panda hat with obscenely large bobble ears for the girl.  
She looked over each of the hats once again, asking the attendant whether there were any other hats out the back. The man nodded and gave her a small smile, moving to go and get the woman a stool to stand on, getting a better look at those hats which were hidden right at the back of the shelving unit. It was there that she had spotted the hard hat.  
It was one that reminded her of her home underneath the stage, fighting with scaffolding poles and lights to locate a spot that was just right for her to place herself down in and focus on her work. Complete with a box of the most irritating hats that she had ever known to have had on her head, but it had saved so many hospital trips in the past. A present for Tracy, maybe? A joke, of course, but for someone who is that clumsy that she succeeded in falling off a bus after a short amount of time, without it moving as she fell, and broke her ankle, following an arm and the wrist of the other arm. God knows how, but she managed it. Possibly a good thing, then, that she had banned the woman from being on stage during a show week. Yes. If anything, it would get her a good laugh and settle as an ornament on the shelves somewhere.   
There were a total of four friends left to deal with. Mog, Pob, Robin and Gaba. Mog was a spectacular one; something that was destined to be shown off at Ascot would be perfect for him, and the most beautiful thing about that particular decision was that there was that one hat right ahead of him that would fit the man so perfectly and suit the couple while they were at it, brightly coloured and extravagant, ribbons in various styles making it seem so much more magnificent to see. For Pob, a black baseball cap with some form of imagery that rang some kind of bells in C’s mind. She was sure that the image that decorated its front was something that she had mentioned in C’s presence. She wasn’t sure, but a hat was a hat after all. It wasn’t something that she could complain about.  
Robin was a lot more challenging for C to find, and as she looked about for a hat for the man, she gave a sigh and ran a hand through her hair, a sign of her inability to decide on which was more of a hat for him. After all, everyone has the hat for them. And for Robin, The hat was a difficult decision. He would have to have the simple kind of hat, one that could either be worn everywhere, or restrained for a certain kind of experience. Various hats caught her eye, a black shaped hat with a feather, a half hat-more-like-a-head-warmer thing or something of the sorts... In truth she didn’t have a clue what she was going to get for him. Of course – once she spotted the little straw hat, well loved and battered, clearly fixed up many times, she knew immediately. And the biggest grin fixed onto her lips. That was it. That was The hat for Robin and she had no other choice but to pick it up. She was oh so happy about that choice as well.  
Her last thought was Gaba, and yet C had not found the right hat for the girl. She truly wished she had found it quite so quickly as she had the others. She hopped down off the stool and moved to pay for the last four hats that she could find for her dear friends for Christmas. Her wonderful, if slightly dysfunctional family that she forever wished that she could spend most the holidays with. It was a shame that a few were splitting off into their own little groups to spend Christmas abroad, with family or just... away. It meant that she had time to spend with Gaba and Carrie in the holidays. It left a silly grin on her lips at the thought. The group were, of course, having their own little Christmas Day celebrations earlier on in December, but it wouldn’t be the same as spending the actual day with everyone.   
Still, as she set herself in her car and pulled away, the hat bag in the boot, she sighed, guilt rising in her. Of all people, Gaba. It was Gaba that she hadn’t managed to find a hat for. It bugged her most the way back home, and then back to the others the next day, once she was back on Campus. She had Griff in the car with her for the majority of the journey back to the campus, having stolen him for the weekend to allow for the Christmas day with the whole group. The one issue that he had forgotten to mention was that he tended to get travel sick. Especially on small winding roads.   
“Yo, C, can you pull over.”   
“Gimmie a mo...”  
“No... Like. Now.”C took one look at the boy and simply nodded, setting off her indicators and pulled over as soon as she could and watched as the boy effectively leapt out of the car to do what he needed. C took a little longer, having to wait at least until it was safe for her to go and make sure that the boy was okay. He nodded as she rested a hand on his back very briefly, her gaze falling to where they had just come from. C really wasn’t the best person to be ill around. Really, it was probably a good thing that she got distracted to the extent that she had done.  
There was a hat lay at the side of the road, a tail kind of thing resting just under the tyre of her car. She sighed and shook her head before moving to get a good look at the sodden fabric. It was faded, once again covered in holes and soaked through, earflaps resting by its side with bobbles on the end of strings that had caught themselves up under the tyre. Her head lifted to look back to Griff before she pulled the thing out and wrung it carefully, watching the muddy water fall to the floor. A gentle smile was on her lips as she silently swore to take care of the thing – much like she had done with Gaba herself. In other words, that was it.  
She had found Gaba’s Hat. And she was never so happy to have done so.   
When the time came, she had each of the hats wrapped up in neat little parcels and the stupidest grin on her lips imaginable as she passed each package out to each member of the group. Jen with the deerstalker, Beck and her patched up hat, the list can carry on. And it struck her as funny just how accurately each hat represented the character of her friends.   
Not one of them complained about them. Infact, most put them on almost immediately, accept for Gaba, who hadn’t yet received hers. C gave her a smile and ruffled the girls short, curled hair   
“I did’t forget you, I promise.” She paused for a second. “Just give me a moment.” The work that had needed to be done on the hat had been, and yet the hat was still in her car, left there to dry out after the multiple washes that had to have been done to be rid of the majority of stains that blemished the perfection of the hat. She ran out to the car, clambering over the back seat to get hold of the hat and ran back through, bounding and bouncing, grinning like a puppy as she presented the hat to the girl. There was no more joy in the face of Gaba then C was feeling at that moment, and she started to repeat the story of the hats discovery, placing it oh so happily on her head.


End file.
